Neil Mockford/Getty Images Logo text Another actor for HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter TV series adaptation is speaking out about author J.K. Rowling’s trans views.
Bel Powley, who plays Potter’s aunt Petunia Dursley in the highly anticipated series, told The Telegraph in an interview published on Monday, “I strongly disagree with J.K. Rowling’s views on gender. I think that the trans community deserve safety and dignity and respect and total acceptance.”
Powley then explained, “But I love Harry Potter. I grew up with the books. I am from that first generation of readers and, again, I love magic and spookiness.”
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Rowling is an executive producer on the HBO series, which will adapt each of the author’s Potter books into a season of television beginning this December. Yet Powley is one of a few from the sprawling ensemble cast to address the hot-button topic.
Nick Frost, who plays the Hogwarts gamekeeper Hagrid, said last year, “She’s allowed her opinion and I’m allowed mine, they just don’t align in any way, shape or form.”
John Lithgow, who plays headmaster Albus Dumbledore, has given somewhat conflicting statements on the topic. In April of 2025, he told The Times UK, “Why is this a factor at all?” and, when asked if her stance on trans rights gave him any pause about accepting the role, replied, “Oh, heavens no.” After receiving backlash for those comments, he called Rowling’s stance “ironic and inexplicable” in February at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. “I find it ironic and somewhat inexplicable that Rowling has expressed such views,” the star said. “I’ve read about them, and I’ve never met her. She’s not really involved in this production at all. The people who are re-adapting Harry Potter and turning it into an eight-year-long TV series are remarkable. … These are people I really want to work with.”
But then Lithgow made headlines again in April saying Rowling’s views had been “twisted and misrepresented.”
Paapa Essiedu, who plays Severus Snape in the series, signed an open letter supporting trans rights in the U.K. last year. Responding to an article speculating that she would “fire” the actor from the show, Rowling posted, “I don’t have the power to sack an actor from the series and I wouldn’t exercise it if I did. I don’t believe in taking away people’s jobs or livelihoods because they hold legally protected beliefs that differ from mine.”
Rowling herself has repeatedly clashed publicly with stars of the original Harry Potter films over the issue, with Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint all publicly rejecting her views and Rowling firing back.
In September 2025, she wrote on X, “I’m not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn’t want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.”
“However,” she continued, “Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right — nay, obligation — to critique me and my views in public … When you’ve known people since they were ten years old it’s hard to shake a certain protectiveness…. [But Emma] has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is … I wasn’t a multimillionaire at 14 … She’ll never need a homeless shelter. She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her ‘public bathroom’ is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door.'”
The first season of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, premieres Dec. 25 on HBO.
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